Words and Phrases
by arcanelegacy
Summary: Ashley has a proposal for her parents and an unexpected reason to propose it in the first place. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: Anything that is not immediately recognizable as the a part of Capcom's trademark is mine unless otherwise stated. I seek no monetary gain from this. **

**Summary: Ashley has a proposal for her parents, and an unexpected reason to propose it in the first place. **

**Rating: **T, mostly for a bit of minor swearing.

**Author's Note:** Written at the request of a friend over on my LJ. She wanted to see some Luis/Ashley, and since I also like the pairing a bit I was more than happy to comply. I had originally promised fluff, but I don't think this qualifies - nor does the next fic I have planned for her. Oops.

* * *

Words and Phrases

When her father had been a senator, they had always eaten dinner together. Though she'd never been quite sure how, he'd always gotten home in time for dinner, even if he had had to sprint off to take care of something else as soon as he was done.

Now that he was the President, though, they only got to eat as a family on rare occasions, mostly for birthdays, holidays, the night before she left for school, the night she came home for the summer…

And, like tonight, the anniversary of the day she'd come home from Spain, alive and well.

"Ashley, honey," her mother asked from across the table, "is something wrong? You've barely touched your food."

Ashley looked up, startled, then looked back down at her plate again. Her mother was right – though they'd been sitting here for almost twenty minutes (and her father was already on seconds), she'd barely eaten anything. She hadn't even noticed.

"Nothing's wrong," she replied, smiling.

"Are you sure?" her father asked. His eyes narrowed. "Is it a boy?"

"No, Daddy it's not – " Ashley stopped. It _was_ about a boy – a man, really – but her father didn't need to worry about her.

It was kinda hard to have a relationship with a dead guy, after all.

But she did have something she wanted to tell her parents.

"It's not about a boy, Dad, I promise. But…I did want to run something by you, if it's okay."

"Of course, Ashley," her mother said, sharing an alarmed look with her father. "What is it?"

_Why the hell is this so hard?_ She thought. It wasn't like she was trying to tell them she was dropping out of school, after all. Just the opposite, in fact. "I want to…I want another major."

Her father jerked back in surprise. His brow furrowed, etching deep wrinkles into his forehead and around his mouth. "You want to change your major?"

"I thought you _liked_ nursing," her mother added.

"Oh, no, I don't want to _change_ it," Ashley said hastily. "I love nursing. I just want to add something else to the mix. A double major."

"And what might that be?"

"Spanish," she said.

"Spanish?" her mother echoed, looking at her father again. "Why Spanish, dear?"

Ashley took a deep breath. Time for the not-total lie she'd spent all afternoon preparing to deliver. "It's a good idea. A lot of the population only speaks Spanish, and I keep hearing that hospitals love having bilingual doctors and nurses on staff because they don't need to hire translators then." She shrugged a little, raising and dropping her shoulders before dropping her gaze to her plate. Keeping her eyes locked on the goopy pond of gravy in the center of her mashed potatoes, she went on, "I just think it'd be nice to be able to interpret what they're saying so I can help them get the treatment they need. The…uh…the only thing is, I think I'd have to be in school another year or so to get both degrees."

"Are you okay with that?" her father asked. "After what…"

"Yeah," Ashley said, cutting him off. She shrugged. "If I have to, I can take classes around my nursing schedule, if I happen to get a job after I finish getting my RN."

"You've obviously thought about this," her mother said. "In that case, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't. If you want to learn Spanish, then learn Spanish."

Ashley nodded, smiling brightly. Though she knew it had been silly to worry – her parents had always been very encouraging of her hobbies and passions and very supportive of the decisions she made, going back as far as she could remember – she had still been afraid they'd see through her half-lie and guess that she had another reason, one very directly relating to…well, her time in Spain. Her disastrous, _terrifying_ time in Spain.

* * *

After dinner, Ashley quietly excused herself and darted up to her room. She took a much more direct route than she usually did, hoping to pass as few of the White House's many, many workers on her way.

Anticipation built in her as she took the stairs two at a time, and even though it was self-induced she still reveled in the thrill of it. She scampered down the halls the way she had when she was five, back when they still lived in their old house in Arizona. Her heart was hammering in her chest when she finally reached her room and she practically leapt inside, quickly turning and pushing the door closed behind her.

Laughing at herself in between gasps for air, Ashley locked the door crossed her room. Dropping to her knees, she ducked under her desk and unlocked her combination lock, putting it down on the floor beside her as she pulled the drawer open and took out the _real_ reason she wanted to learn Spanish.

It was a letter. Written entirely in Spanish. Luis had given it to her while she was still chained against that wall in the castle – the bastard had given her a goddamned _letter_ instead of getting her out of the damn trap – but she spoke little Spanish and could only pick out a word or two here and there. Certainly not enough to tell what the message even was.

She refused to give it to one of her friends to translate (even though one of them was a _Spanish major_ and made a ton of money translating pamphlets and brochures from one language to the other), and hadn't even told Leon about it. There was something in the way Luis had handed it to her that made her think it wasn't meant for anyone else.

Sighing softly, Ashley took the letter over to her bed and flopped, belly-down, onto her comforter, tracing her eyes over the words on the page. His handwriting was surprisingly elegant, even though she could tell this thing had been written in a hurry.

She picked out words, the few she could recognize: Presidente, for President. Abuelo, that was grandfather. Bonita – didn't that mean pretty? Plagas, but she didn't count that.

Her cell phone, sitting on her desk, began to ring. Ashley reached for it and answered after checking the caller ID – Kayla, one of her friends.

"Hello?"

"Ash, girl, you gotta get out here. Heather's having one of her freakouts again."

"Shit," Ashley said, bolting upright. "She's got that exam tomorrow, hasn't she?"

"Yeah. She's really losing it."

"Where are you?"

"The ice cream place on Pennsylvania."

"Trying to calm her down with strawberry and butter pecan?"

"We're doing what we can, but nobody gives pep talks the way you do. You've gotta get down here."

"All right," Ashley said. "I'm on my way."

She hung up the phone, grabbed her purse, and was halfway to the door when she remembered that she'd left the letter sitting on her bed. Darting back to it, she carefully lifted it, looking it over once more with a smile.

_Someday, _she thought, carefully putting the letter back into her desk, _I will be able to read you. I'll finally be able to find out what you wanted me to know, Luis. _

And maybe she'd be able to write a letter back, even if she couldn't send it anywhere.


End file.
